Category Archives: Barack Obama

Have you heard the one about McCain and the Syrian rebels?

I wasn’t watching the news all that closely yesterday, so, as sometimes happens with Twitter, I saw the jokes about John McCain sneaking into Syria to talk to the rebels before I knew he had gone. Here’s the first I saw:

pourmecoffeeVerified account‏@pourmecoffee

Syrian rebels with McCain, probably: “I want to trust your judgment, but go over again why you thought she was qualified to be president.”

Later, someone brought my attention to this one from McCain pal Lindsey Graham:

Lindsey GrahamVerified account‏@GrahamBlog

Best wishes to @SenJohnMcCain in Syria today. If he doesn’t make it back calling dibs on his office.

Anyway, no doubt to Graham’s chagrin, McCain apparently made it back out of Syria OK (at least, that’s how I read this reference to Yemen). The White House has said today that yeah, they knew he was going, and no, they don’t have anything else to say about it, but look forward to hearing from the senator about his trip.

The contemptible SC Senate kills Medicaid expansion

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Of course, in the Senate’s defense, it is merely doing what the contemptible SC House and our contemptible governor did before them:

COLUMBIA, SC — The state Senate killed Medicaid expansion on Tuesday, the last hope for supporters who wanted to extend health insurance benefits to South Carolina’s working poor.

The vote was 23-19, with two Republicans – Ray Cleary of Georgetown and Paul Campbell of Berkeley County – joining all of the Senate’s 17 Democrats present in voting for the expansion. Four senators, one Democrat and three Republicans, were absent.

The proposal would have accepted $795.8 million in federal money to pay for health insurance for about 320,000 South Carolinians beginning Jan. 1. There would have been no direct cost to the state. Because the proposed Medicaid expansion was an amendment to the state budget, it would have expired after one year. Lawmakers would have had to vote to expand coverage again next year…

Congratulations to Sens. Ray Cleary and Paul Campbell for doing what is unquestionably, indubitably the right thing. I can’t say I know either of them, really, but I’ve heard Paul Campbell speak, and suspect that he’s one of the brightest people in the Legislature. The retired regional president of Alcoa, he’s a man of accomplishment who seems to have a good grasp of how the world actually works. This vote is consistent with that impression.

As for the rest, particularly those who voted against this for no better reason than the fact that it has the name “Obama” attached to it, and that’s what you’re expected to do if you’re a Republican in South Carolina… well, you’ve just demonstrated once again why I hold partythink in such low regard.

Yes, one can rationalize all day and all night about how there are better ways to achieve the goals of Obamacare, but when you’re all done, you haven’t changed the fact that this is the only plan in effect, or likely to come into effect. This is it. You either do it, or give the idea of significantly broadening access to health care the back of your hand.

Senate panel votes to arm (some) Syrian rebels

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The thing that strikes me about this is the bipartisan nature of it:

WASHINGTON—A key Senate committee overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday that calls for the U.S. to provide small arms to moderate Syrian opposition groups fighting strongman Bashar al-Assad, underscoring growing sentiment among lawmakers for a change in the U.S. approach to the conflict.

The 15-3 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee showed broad support from both Democrats and Republicans for arming the rebels, though some lawmakers from each party voiced concern over the difficulty of ensuring the weapons aren’t misused and won’t slip into the hands of radical Islamists aligned with al Qaeda….

Sometimes it appears that the president is the only person in Washington who does not want to arm Syrian rebels. If you’ll recall, his national security team was all for it last year, but he said no.

I don’t just dismiss the concerns of Rand Paul, et al., about weapons falling into the wrong hands and other unintended consequences. I realize that the mujahideen we backed in Afghanistan provided a training ground for Osama bin Laden.

But given the alternatives of a) Assad prevailing and b) affiliates of al Qaeda coming out on top, it seems we ought to be doing something to try to tilt things in another direction.

Given that the president keeps getting closer and closer to his own “red line” (see the BBC’s story last week, “US has seen Syria chemical weapons evidence, says Obama“), maybe even he will be on board with that ere long.

I don’t think for a moment that any options are attractive in this situation. But in the real, messy world of shooting wars out there, options seldom are.

A digression…

The president and his “red line” remind me of a brief lesson my Algebra II teacher gave us on the concept of “limits.” I don’t know how it came up, since it was way beyond the level of that particular class, but I remember it because it was a much more vivid explanation than anything I later heard in calculus classes.

He stood facing the wall, and then stepped halfway to the wall. Then moved to half of the remaining distance to the wall. Then he did it again. Then he said, imagine that operation repeated infinitely. You would forever get closer to the wall, but never reach it. That’s a limit.

I found it kind of a mind-blowing concept. Forever moving toward something, and never reaching it…

What the president didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it

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This just in from The Washington Post:

Senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough, learned last month about a review by the Treasury Department’s inspector general into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, but they did not inform President Obama, the White House said Monday.

The acknowledgement is the White House’s latest disclosure in a continual release of details concerning the extent to which White House officials knew of the IG’s findings that IRS officials engaged in the “inappropriate” targeting of conservative non-profits for heightened scrutiny. Previously, the White House said counsel Kathryn Ruemmler did not learn of the investigation until the week of April 22^nd, and had not disclosed that McDonough and other aides had also been told about the investigation. On Monday, Carney said the chief of staff and other aides learned of the probe the week of April 16.

The White House has said President Obama did not learn of the IRS’s actions until he saw news reports on the matter earlier this month….

For some reason, this reminds me an incident involving my two youngest grandchildren. My wife was keeping them the other day, and walked out of the room for a second. Immediately, my grandson (who had his first birthday over the weekend) yelled. My wife rushed back into the room and asked his big sister, 3, what had happened.

Her response: “I didn’t kick him in the head…”

My point being that sometimes, when you overexplain, it just gets you into more trouble.

‘Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!’

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There’s a scene in “Bananas” in which Woody Allen’s character is discussing the economy of his new, adopted country, and when he’s told that bananas are its greatest export, he cries, “Bananas, bananas!” in a tone that conveys that he’s heard enough about that particular fruit. (I tried to find a video clip of that, but couldn’t. And is it my imagination that that movie used to be available on Netflix, but is not now?)

There were times in recent months when many of us would have a similar reaction to Lindsey Graham’s (and John McCain’s, and Kelly Ayotte’s) repetition of the word, “Benghazi.”

Subsequent events have indicated that further inquiry into what happened there last Sept. 11 is at least worth further investigation. There should be bipartisan agreement on that much. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that any investigation that involves the Congress will be tainted by consideration of the 2016 presidential election, and the anticipated candidacy of Hilary Clinton.

For that reason, I though it particularly unfortunate that Lindsey Graham should say, just as everyone is finally paying attention, the following:

If it had been known by the American people seven weeks before the election the truth about Benghazi, I think it would have made a difference in the election…

No, it wouldn’t have. You still would have had Barack Obama going up against Mitt Romney, and the outcome would have been the same. It’s hard to imagine any sort of statement that might have been made about Benghazi. I mean, really, what would it have been? Are you saying the president should have said, “I’ve done a rotten job of protecting the American people, because I just don’t care. I could have saved the ambassador, but I personally decided not to, because I just didn’t like him. And I’ll do it the same way next time…”

It was a terrorist attack in a politically unstable place where there are tremendous numbers of weapons circulating, and it ended tragically. It should cause us to review consulate security across the globe. That’s the “truth about Benghazi,” and if the administration had said that on day one, and continued to say it through the election, I see no way it would have affected the election outcome.

Anyway, you and your fellow senators were being heard as you cried in the wilderness about this topic, before the election. But you were being dismissed by some as Republicans who were trying to wring electoral advantage from the tragedy. So… why would you want to give credence to that by saying something like this?

Dueling videos, opening shots in 2014 campaign

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James Smith’s comments about Nikki Haley and “corruption” should also be taken within the context of the above ad from the Democratic Governor’s Association.

Meanwhile, with the video below, Haley supporters show that they want to run against Barack Obama again. But at least this ad mentions Sheheen, which is something.

How do the ads strike me? As I indicated earlier, I’m a little leery of the word “corruption.” Yeah, Nikki Haley has a serious transparency problem, she’s not very good at paying her taxes on time, and that $40k she got from Wilbur Smith when she was in the House raises a questions that have not yet been answered. But “corruption” is a word I tend to use for something more overt, more red-handed. Early in my career, back in Tennessee, I saw out-and-out corruption — Gov. Ray Blanton selling pardons. He went to prison for it. Maybe that made me overly fussy. The things the DGA are citing here are real problems, and they provide us with plenty of reason not to vote for Nikki Haley; I’m just quibbling over the word.

The Sheheen/Obamacare ad is just disgraceful. But then, so is the governor’s position of refusing to accept federal funds to expand Medicaid, so I see it entirely in that context. For me, her position is indefensible, so the ad is as well. Then there’s that additional ugliness of playing to the fact that “Obama” is the boogeyman to so many white voters in South Carolina. “Obamacare” is used as an incantation, with the operative ingredient being “Obama,” not the “care.” The issue is secondary to the fact that that awful Obama person is associated with it.

Did it strike anyone else when Obama used the ‘E’ word?

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A discussion earlier today about what Democrats and Republicans like to call things (say, “criminal” vs. “enemy combatant,” for instance) reminded me of something I noticed last week but failed to mention.

Everybody went on and on about Obama initially not using the word “terror,” and later using it.

Me, I was more impressed by another word he used:

So if you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil, that’s it. Selflessly. Compassionately. Unafraid.

“Evil,” of course, being a word out of the George W. Bush lexicon. Allegedly, liberals don’t hold with that word, suggestive as it is of moral absolutes. But the president used the word — perfectly appropriately, of course. But I noted it with interest…

Report: Now, ricin-laced letter has been mailed to Obama

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First, there was the report last night that mail containing ricin had been intercepted on its way to Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker.

Now, there’s this:

WASHINGTON – A letter addressed to President Obama, containing a suspicious substance, was intercepted at a screening facility outside the White House, the Secret Service said on Wednesday.

The letter was received on Tuesday – similar timing to the letter addressed to Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, which tested positive for ricin. The letter had similar markings and is similar in appearance to the one addressed to Mr. Wicker, according to a law enforcement official.

The Secret Service did not disclose what was in the letter or provide any details, saying it was intercepted in a facility that “routinely identifies letters or parcels that require secondary screening or scientific testing before delivery.”

The mailing facility is not close to the White House grounds, the Secret Service said. An official said the Secret Service is working with the United States Capitol Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This is more than weird. After 9/11, we had the anthrax mailings. Now this, after Boston. Is there something about overt terrorist acts on U.S. soil that stimulates a certain kind of deviant to put poison in the mail?

Ricin, you say? Does anyone know the whereabouts of this man?

This really brings back the memories. Since some media types were among the targets last time around, we went the extra mile at The State to make sure ensure the safety of employees. Some regular travelers like Doug experienced inconvenience at airports. For me, the biggest direct impact of extreme security measures was dealing with the mail in the fall of 2001.

It was decided to move mail sorting out of the main building, into a smaller structure located on the grounds of The State. And senior staff members — the executives in charge of news, editorial, advertising, circulation, etc. — worked shifts supervising the process. So it was that I found myself going over to the other building for an hour or two, a couple of times a week, to personally supervise the shuffling of mail. There was no practical point to senior staff doing this, beyond the point of showing that we would share any one-in-a-million danger involved in the process.

It was as boring as it sounds, and every moment was imbued with a sense of absurdity. But such was the atmosphere in the country at the time.

The interesting thing about these latest developments, for me, was that I learned that Congress and the White House were still processing mail at remote locations. Well, it makes a lot more sense for them to be doing it than for a private business. But I didn’t know it until now.

But was Obama RIGHT about Kamala Harris?

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I’m really not terribly interested in whether President Obama’s compliment about California Attorney General Kamala Harris was “sexist.” After all these years, I’m still trying to figure out an accurate, consistent definition of the term. It seems to shift, depending on context.

I’ll let y’all hash that out. Anyway, here’s what I’m talking about:

Speaking at a fundraiser in a wealthy San Francisco suburb, President Obama praised the looks of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Obama said. “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”

“It’s true! C’mon,” he added, to laughter from the crowd…

And why did they laugh? Because most of the people in the crowd, male and female, had probably had more or less the same thought.

Coming from Obama, I take the remark as pretty benign. If it had come from Bill Clinton, I might react differently. Poor Obama — he’s seen as so aloof, so one time he tries to be a regular guy, to give an honest human reaction, even be gallant, and he ends up having to apologize for it. With Bill Clinton, the remark would be superfluous because we already knew he was a “regular guy” — and not in a good way.

400px-Kamala_Harris_Official_Attorney_General_Photo

And really, I want to hear from everyone on this. I’m not looking for the male reaction. Women are equally fine judges of pulchritude. I’m not looking for anything salacious or lascivious. I’m thinking more on the level of that episode of “Seinfeld” when George said of Joe DiMaggio, “Now that is a handsome man.”No, for once, I’d rather stay away from the value judgments, and ask a simple question: Was the president’s observation accurate?

When I started writing this post, I meant to link to a site that would show us all of the attorneys general. Unfortunately, the only link I’ve found that looks like it would enable us to do that doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe a lot of other people had the same thought, and overloaded the site — I don’t know.

I can say that, based on the photos I’ve looked at, she’s the best-looking attorney general I’ve ever seen. (Henry McMaster may have been tall and well-coiffed, but come on…) But I may have missed some unusually handsome examples of both genders; I must admit that.

I’m just trying to help the president out here, on the theory that truth is an effective defense…

Apparently, we communitarians are disappointed in Obama

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I say that because Amitai Etzioni, the acknowledged ultimate communitarian guru, writes the following on the HuffPost:

If you understand where President Obama is headed in his second term, pray send me an email. I like him, wish him Godspeed, and might well support where he is going — if I could just figure out where that is….

During his reelection campaign, the president evoked a vision I found very compelling. I call it thefair society, one in which — as he put it — “everyone gets a fair shot… everyone does their fair share, [and] everyone plays by the same rules.” It was a theme into which one could fold many other specific policies that we must promote, including reducing inequality, ensuring that there are jobs for all, and creating a society that does not discriminate and where special interests at kept at bay. However, the post-election Obama turned very prosaic. I miss the visionary one.

The president is consistently sticking to his theme that the time has come for nation-building at home. I do not recall an inaugural address or a State of the Union in which foreign policy was mentioned as little as this time around. As Slate’s Fred Kaplan put it, Obama, in his State of the Union address, “barely mentioned foreign and defense policy until 54 minutes after he walked into the chamber — and even drew more of a vague sketch than a policy.” I wonder if Syria, Iran, Pakistan, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the resurgent al Qaeda will play ball. I fear they will force the president’s hand to be more mindful of what is happening out there.

Maybe it is just a post-election slump or a changing of the guard in the White House. Maybe others have divined where Obama is taking us. If you have, do your good deed for the week and let the rest of us know.

Mind you, I just have communitarian tendencies. I’m not doctrinaire anything, and not necessarily guided by what Prof. Etzioni says. Unlike Democrats and Republicans, I don’t let other people do my thinking for me. But he may have a point. I’m not entirely sure where the president is going these days, either.

It’s about time these people started sitting down together

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Lindsey Graham had a busy day yesterday in his complicated relationship with Barack Obama. He complained about the administration’s plans to try Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law in federal court, called the expansion of Medicaid “disastrous,” trashed Rand Paul and defended the president’s drone warfare, and complimented the president on a nice dinner the previous evening.

I had heard Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., say on the radio that he and other GOP senators had a good discussion, and a good dinner, at the White House Wednesday night. Graham elaborated on that in a release:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made the following statement after meeting with the President:

“Last night’s dinner with President Obama and my Republican colleagues was productive and substantive. I hope it will serve as the beginning of a new, long-overdue paradigm where people in elected office actually begin talking to each other about meaningful issues.

“The discussions with the President about our long-term budget problems were candid and differences in philosophy were apparent. However, also apparent was common ground on how to move forward.

“One thing I am certain of — the perpetual campaign will not solve the nation’s problems.

“Finally, I shared with my colleagues there is no dishonor in trying and failing to solve big problems. The long-term budgetary problems we discussed last night have defied bipartisan solutions for far too long. I’m ready to try to solve the serious, long-term budget problems our country faces and can accept failure as an outcome. But I cannot accept not trying.”

#####

Then, on Thursday, the president had Paul Ryan over for lunch.

You know what? It’s about time. What I’d like to know is, why weren’t these kinds of meetings going on long before now? Graham was right to say that it’s sad that something like this makes news.

‘Jumping the shark:’ You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means…

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In today’s WSJ, under the headline, “Jumping the sequester,” columnist Kimberley A. Strassel writes the following:

The phrase “jumping the shark” describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester.

The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo, it would deny the nation’s school kids a chance to view a symbol of America.

The act was designed to spark outrage against Republicans, yet the sheer pettiness of it instead provided a moment of clarity. Americans might not understand the technicalities of sequester, but this was something else entirely. Was the president actually claiming there was not a single other government item—not one—that could be cut instead of the White House tours? Really?

Yeahhh… I don’t think that’s jumping the shark. Do y’all.? That sounds to me like somebody wrote the headline first, and tried to force the column to fit it. Let’s look at the Wikipedia definition:

Jumping the shark is an idiom created by Jon Hein that is used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery, which is usually a particular scene, episode, or aspect of a show in which the writers use some type of “gimmick” in a desperate attempt to keep viewers’ interest…

And here’s the origin:

The phrase jump the shark comes from a scene in the fifth season premiere episode of the American TV series Happy Days titled “Hollywood: Part 3“, written by Fred Fox, Jr.^[4] which aired on September 20, 1977. In the episode, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where a water-skiing Fonzie (Henry Winkler) answers a challenge to his bravery by wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, and jumping over a confined shark. The stunt was created as a way to showcase Winkler’s real life water ski skills.^[5]

For a show that in its early seasons depicted universally relatable adolescent and family experiences against a backdrop of 1950s nostalgia, this incident marked an audacious, cartoonish turn towards attention-seeking gimmickry. Initially a supporting character, the faddish lionization of an increasingly superhuman Fonzie became the focus of Happy Days. The series continued for seven years after Fonzie’s shark-jumping stunt, with a number of changes in cast and situations. However, it is commonly^[who?] believed that the show began a creative decline in this era, as writers ran out of ideas, and Happy Daysbecame a caricature of itself. As a nod to the episode, Henry Winkler’s character again jumped a shark in the 2003 show Arrested Development…

To me, that’s a pretty clear definition that the Strossel example doesn’t fit. You can call the White House cancellation of tours all kinds of things — in these parts, we’d call it a “Big Bird defense” — but it’s not jumping the shark.

That said, the very same Wikipedia entry I quote above gives an example, also involving Barack Obama, that I don’t think fits either:

In 2008 during the Obama presidential campaign, at a meeting of Democratic governors in Chicago, each governor was identified with a name plate while Senator Obama had a large seal – that looked official but was not.^[11] The New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich wrote “For me, Mr. Obama showed signs of jumping the shark two weeks back, when he appeared at a podium affixed with his own pompous faux-presidential seal”.^[12]

So what do I consider to be a perfect example of jumping the shark? This: When the Beverly Hillbillies went to England. Actually, that series jumped the shark several times; it was sort of a defining characteristic. It sort of did so when Jethro received his draft notice and costumed himself as Patton and bought a tank. It really, really did so when the whole cast jumped fictional universes, going to Hooterville to interact with characters from “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres.” (A radical change of venue can be a good sign that a shark is being jumped.)

In fact, those examples are so good that I have trouble coming up with any others that illustrate the concept so well, as I understand it. It’s not limited to iconic sitcoms, of course. And it can be translated to politics. When Bill Clinton played saxophone on Arsenio Hall seems a pretty clear example. If you go way back, there’s Richard Nixon’s “Sock it to me?” on “Laugh-In.”

But closing the White House to tours? Not so much…

Inez announces she’ll step down as CPSC chief

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I had heard awhile back that Inez wouldn’t stick around for Obama’s second term, but I guess this makes it official:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Having led the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) through one of the most significant transformations in the agency’s history, Chairman Inez M. Tenenbaum announced today that she will not seek renomination when her terms expires in October 2013.

In an address at the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization annual meeting, the Chairman stated: “I plan to stay on as Chairman until my successor is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, so that I can be sure that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is in safe hands.”

“So many qualified, deserving people have wanted to serve in the President administration—and he chose me. For the rest of my life, I will be grateful to President Obama for nominating me to be Chairman of the CPSC and for giving me the opportunity to serve in his administration,” added the Chairman. “It has been my great privilege to serve as Chairman of the CPSC, and the best part of my experience has been working with the many talented, dedicated professionals at the agency. “

Chairman Tenenbaum has transformed CPSC into one of the leading safety agencies in the world. Immediately after her July 2009 swearing in, Chairman Tenenbaum established a leadership philosophy aimed at making the agency more accessible and transparent; making education and advocacy a priority; and being firm, but fair, in enforcing safety laws and working to keep unsafe products out of the hands of consumers. In October 2010, Chairman Tenenbaum announced a new five-year Strategic Plan (2011-2016), which set forth a twenty-first century mission and vision for CPSC. The Strategic Plan has made CPSC more proactive, more focused on injury prevention, and moved the agency closer to being the recognized global leader in consumer product safety…

The release goes on with a long list of accomplishments in office. For which I congratulate her, and thank her for her service.

It will be nice to have her back in South Carolina…

White House prediction of sequester’s impact on SC

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Yesterday, the White House put out a state-by-state breakdown of what it said would be the likely impacts if sequestration happens.

Some excerpts of what the report said about South Carolina:

In South Carolina, approximately 11,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $59.5 million in total. Army: Base operation funding would be cut by about $62 million in South Carolina. Air Force: Funding for Air Force operations in South Carolina would be cut by about $19 million.
Head Start and Early Head Start services would be eliminated for approximately 900 children in South Carolina, reducing access to critical early education.
South Carolina will lose approximately $12.5 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 170 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 15,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 30 fewer schools would receive funding. In addition, South Carolina will lose approximately $8.6 million in funds for about 100 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities.

One thing Graham definitely is NOT is dumb…

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Say what you want about the increasingly ubiquitous Lindsey Graham, Salon was way off the mark today when its header featured an unflattering photo of our senior senator next to the teaser hed, “Hagel’s dumbest enemies.”

Of course, as is often the case with such hyperbolic come-ons, the actual headline that the teaser linked to took it down a notch: “The increasingly ridiculous Hagel opposition.” The subhed, situated atop huge mugs of Graham and John McCain, begins, “Republicans block a vote for no reason…”

The very first paragraph of the body copy then refutes that (boldface added):

Sen. Graham and his best friend John McCain have been blocking the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Defense secretary, because they want to know whether President Obama called the president of Libya the night of the Benghazi attack. While that’s not a very good reason to filibuster a Cabinet nominee, it is at least “a reason.” The White House has complied, giving Graham and McCain what they want. Graham’s response: Now he is just going to pointlessly delay the Hagel vote, because it will make him feel good. As always, with Lindsey Graham, being a senator is all about feelings.

Disagree with Graham — and McCain — all you want, but making him the poster boy of the “dumbest” is, well, pretty stupid.

I find a lot of the indignation on the left about delaying the Hagel nomination a few days a little on the disingenuous, even absurd, side. My least favorite manifestation of this is when I hear a Democrat express absolute mystification that these Republicans could possibly be objecting to Hagel, since he’s a Republican. There is no mystery as to why this is a Republican Democrats love. and Republicans have problems with him for the same reasons.

There are actual substantive reasons to question this nomination. We could start with his having been completely wrong on the Iraq surge. Which is kinda relevant in a candidate for SecDef. But then, of course, we’d have a whole other argument that we’ve had too many times before…

So never mind all that. I don’t call the president “dumb” for wanting a guy who looked at Iraq the way he did. I have more respect for the president than that.

But there’s a bigger reason I wouldn’t call Barack Obama dumb: I’ve heard him speak. And the same goes for Lindsey Graham.

I was speaking to a class at Lexington High School yesterday, and I let slip a comment that always makes me sound arrogant when I say it, but it’s true: It’s pretty unusual for me to interview a political officeholder in South Carolina who makes me think to myself, “This guy’s smarter than I am.” But I’ve had that thought more than once when talking with Lindsey Graham.

And I may have a host of faults — correction, I do have a host of faults — but being dumb isn’t one of them.

Thoughts on the State of the Union?

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As I type this, Marco Rubio is wrapping up his response to the State of the Union. And I find myself wondering yet again, as I do every year this time, no matter who is in the White House… how did this ridiculous ritual get started?

I don’t mean the SOTU; I mean the response. The State of the Union is the president fulfilling a constitutional duty — which, by the way, he can do in writing (just a suggestion). But as much as that has transformed into political theater, the response is nothing but theater.

And you know what? It always comes across as lame, no matter which party is delivering it or which up-and-comer they choose to be the face of it. It rubs our noses in the fact that partisanship is so obligatory and ritualized today that an elected official can’t even deliver a constitutionally-mandated message without the other party immediately standing up to say “nyah-nyah, that guy’s full of it.”

The artificiality of it is underlined by the fact that it is not a response at all, but a speech prepared ahead of time — a set of partisan talking points that the party wants to deliver regardless of what the president said.

Anyway, to me, the party delivering the response always comes across as petty and pointless. To me, anyway. Kind of sad, really.

Enough about that. Thoughts on the real speech, the one the president gave? Here’s an assessment from over at the WashPost:

That was an incredibly ambitious speech.

Imagine, for a moment, that President Obama managed to pass every policy he proposedtonight. Within a couple of years, every four-year-old would have access to preschool. The federal minimum wage would be at $9 — higher than it’s been, after adjusting for inflation, since 1981. There’d be a cap-and-trade program limiting our carbon emissions and a vast infrastructure investment to upgrade our roads and bridges. Taxes would be higher, guns would be harder to come by, and undocumented immigrants would have a path to citizenship. America would be a noticeably different country.

Yes, it was ambitious. About everything. I found that no particular part of it stood out for me, because he touched on so many things that he didn’t fully focus on anything. But maybe that’s just me.

I did like the communitarian touch at the end, about “the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another.”

Which of course Rubio summed up as “growing government.” Whatever. Although I’ll say that the president wanted to do so much that anyone would have to wonder at some point how we’re going to pay for it.

What did y’all think?

John Yoo on the Obama administration’s drone memo

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When I first read of the Obama administration’s drone memo earlier in the week, I idly wondered what John Yoo would think of them.

You remember him. He’s the lawyer who wrote the “Torture Memos” for the Bush administration.

Well, now I don’t have to wonder, because he wrote what he thinks of the latest development in The Wall Street Journal today.

The general thrust of his piece is that the great flaw in the current administration’s justification for its drone program is that it’s based not in the assumption that we are at war with al Qaeda, but on the assumption of so many on the antiwar left that terrorism should be treated as a crime. As he puts it, “the Obama administration is trying to dilute the normal practice of war with law-enforcement methods.” Which means you have to go through extra gyrations of rationalization to order a drone strike.

I’ll let others argue over that. What intrigued me was the ethical question Yoo raised at the very end of his piece:

Rather than capture terrorists—which produces the most valuable intelligence on al Qaeda—Mr. Obama has relied almost exclusively on drone attacks, and he has thereby been able to dodge difficult questions over detention. But those deaths from the sky violate personal liberty far more than the waterboarding of three al Qaeda leaders ever did.

That’s something else I’ve been thinking about: Which is worse, taking someone captive and mistreating him, or killing him?

There’s the related question: Is the killing of our enemies with essentially a deus ex machina from the sky, with no risk to Americans, rather than facing them in battle, the morally preferable course? OK, most Americans would probably say “yes,” to that one, but let’s address the first question: Is killing preferable, morally and ethically, to capturing and torturing?

And no, those aren’t the only two options we have. But that’s the question Yoo posed, and I find it an interesting one.

Obama on immigration: ‘Before they were us, they were them’

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Upstaged Monday by the Gang of Eight, President Obama today rolled out his own plans for comprehensive immigration reform today. Here is a fact sheet put out by the White House, and here are his complete remarks. The president went more in for some high-flown rhetoric in his speech, delivered in Las Vegas. An excerpt:

Immigration’s always been an issue that inflames passions. That’s not surprising. You know, there are few things that are more important to us as a society than who gets to come here and call our country home, who gets the privilege of becoming a citizen of the Untied States of America. That’s a big deal. When we talk about that in the abstract, it’s easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of us versus them. And when that happens, a lot of folks forget that most of us used to be them. (Cheers, applause.) We forget that.

And it’s really important for us to remember our history. You know, unless you’re one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. (Cheers, applause.) Somebody brought you.

You know, Ken Salazar — he’s of, you know, Mexican-American descent, but he — he points out that his family’s been living where — where he lives for 400 years.

(Cheers.) So he didn’t — he didn’t immigrate anywhere. (Laughter.)

The Irish, who left behind a land of famine; the Germans, who fled persecution; the Scandinavians, who arrived eager to pioneer out west; the Polish; the Russians; the Italians; the Chinese; the Japanese; the West Indians; the huddled masses who came through Ellis Island on one coast and Angel Island on the other — (cheers, applause) — you know, all those folks, before they were us, they were them. (Laughter.)

And when each new wave of immigrants arrived, they faced resistance from those who were already here. They faced hardship. They faced racism. They faced ridicule. But over time, as they went about their daily lives, as they earned a living, as they raised a family, as they built a community, as their kids went to school here, they did their part to build the nation. They were the Einsteins and the Carnegies, but they were also the millions of women and men whose names history may not remember but whose actions helped make us who we are, who built this country hand by hand, brick by brick. (Cheers, applause.)

But he did talk about the practical business of getting something passed, and favorably mentioned the Gang of Eight’s proposals, while saying if they don’t fly, he’ll be pushing his own plan:

Now, the good news is that for the first time in many years Republicans and Democrats seem ready to tackle this problem together. (Cheers, applause.) Members of both parties in both chambers are actively working on a solution. Yesterday a bipartisan group of senators announced their principles for comprehensive immigration reform, which are very much in line with the principles I’ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years. So at this moment it looks like there’s a genuine desire to get this done soon. And that’s very encouraging.

But this time action must follow. We can’t allow — (applause) — immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate. We’ve been debating this a very long time. So it’s not as if we don’t know technically what needs to get done.

As a consequence, to help move this process along, today I’m laying out my ideas for immigration reform. And my hope is that this provides some key markers to members of Congress as they craft a bill, because the ideas that I’m proposing have traditionally been supported by both Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Republicans like President George W. Bush. You don’t get that matchup very often. (Laughter.) So — so we know where the consensus should be.

Now of course, there will be rigorous debate about many of the details. And every stakeholder should engage in real give and take in the process. But it’s important for us to recognize that the foundation for bipartisan action is already in place. And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.

So after six years, this issue is officially back on the nation’s front burner. Here’s hoping something sensible actually gets done this time.

Whoa! I missed the part about ‘Peace in our time’!

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MunichAgreement_

As I said before, I didn’t catch all of the president’s speech yesterday, and something rather important got by me:

The WTF moment for me in Obama’s second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was his use of the phrase “peace in our time.” This came during his discussion of foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu’s chain.

I also simply didn’t understand what he meant by “a world without boundaries.” But my immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries — like those meant to keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan…

Yikes. You know, there are certain phrases that anyone with an understanding of history would be careful to avoid. Such as “Mistakes were made.” “I am not a crook.” “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

And of course, “peace in our time.” What was the thinking on that? Did the president think that his base would like the sound of it, and not understand the profoundly disturbing historical allusion? Hey, it was politically popular when Chamberlain said it, although Britain woke up later.

I just don’t see how a line like that appears in such a formal speech by accident. And no other explanation is excusable.

That’s an association you don’t want. And for another thing, it doesn’t fit well with the president’s ongoing aggressive drone war. That suggests cynicism. As in, the president gave the gift of peace to four al Qaeda militants on Monday…

Oh, and another thing… since when did people who right for Foreign Policy start using such expressions as “WTF”?

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